Arcche

Okay 4 votes - 3 for Villette and 1 for Carroll (I love the effect of the double consonants!). No other votes forthcoming, and so is the patience of the faithful four. So we begin - with Villette.

To the normatively dormant types this one final, desperate plea - Please, in the name of all that is holy and unholy to you, PARTICIPATE! It is unfair of you to plunge us hopefuls in deep seas of misery and sadness by your snubbing. Is it really so difficult to spare 10 minutes of your time to log-in to this space to say "Hello"? Or is this enterprise too devoid of interest to merit your attention?

We are really grieved with your persistent no-show. Earnestly hoping for better visibility in the future.

To the rest - this is our playground/canvas/whatnot: let's paint it in as vivid colours as possible! Commencez! :D

Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life."

~Helen Exley :)

Bookies!

With Karie having already booked this space thrice with her exhortations, I hereby without much ado and delay demystify the dance of exclaimations for those who came in late - the gang has hit upon the plan of launching a book club with blog discussion sessions centred around a book of choice for the month. The idea was derived after much contemplation and lamentation of the fact that most of us are fast losing touch with the world made real to us at our much-loved alma mater, so much so that the onset of a literary alzheimers' is being seriously dreaded by yours truly. The case being more or less the same with the other three divas present at Saturday's rendezvous, the proposal was made and instantly accepted with much fervour for imposing compulsory reading sessions on the gang of a literary nature. Time being usually short with most of us - what with megadeath-dealing professional and personal commitments - we've decided to keep it a once-in-a-month activity with the choice of book being given at the start of the month and discussions happening through the course of the last week of that month.

Books can be selected on the basis of author, genre, theme, notoriety, licentiousness, insipidity and any other caprice that we might deem fit at the time. There being eight of us in toto, each will take turns suggesting two books every month out of which the book getting maximum votes from the gang will be the selected reading for that month. As for the question of procuring the books - some of us might want to buy them as a means of enhancing our personal collection, some others might not want to incur the expense unnecessarily, others yet might want to utilize the resources of a lending library. We are comfortable with any and all of these, but the onus rests with the Henry James of the month to provide links to the free e-texts available on the net for each of the two books. A little extra trouble, we know, but compulsory and useful nevertheless.

As usual, our ambitions soar high - we intend to dissect and confiscate the extant and prevalent literary practices, idioms and dogmas for ourselves and turn them into such gaggle mush as would make Messers Bloom and Derrida squirm in their respective chair and grave. But ensuring such flights of fancy to stay afloat and not merely crash and burn even at take-off (or mid-air for that matter) rests upon 100% participation from all the divas irrespective of time, space, mood, occupation and inclination. Srin, Tua and Ayan are hereby warned of being majorly bludgeoned by the gang on their presuming to offer their usual no-show routine.

For the rest of us normatively active types, lets roll up our sleeves gals and plunge right in! Hoping nobody minds my appropriating the privilege, I hereby take the opportunity of suggesting the first two books to be considered for the upcoming month of June - we intend to begin with light, easy reading graduating onto serious, heavy stuff as we progress along the path of re-acquaintanceship with that which brought us all together in the first place. I have a quirk for fishing out and reading the obscure works of celebrated classic authors and comparing them with their more successful works. Taking it up from there I thought of suggesting Charlotte Bronte's Villette along with Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (e-texts hyperlinked on the names) for this month's reading. People with better suggestions kindly excuse the presumption and notify us with your choices, we'd be more than willing to oblige and follow. Otherwise we might as well start with one of these as anything else.

Divas this is the time to wake up and lead - so VOTE! Let us finalize the book by this friday so that we can go about procuring and devouring it by the beginning of June.

Reading forward for your response! :)

P.S: At the behest of a particularly vigilant but non-posting diva (read: Ved), the blog is henceforth being made a private invite-only domain to protect it from nefarious and voyeuristic lurkers. Invites are being issued to all members of the gang: you just need to log-in with your email-ids to read and post on the blog. This means that the blog will not be visible by merely keying in the url, which in turn means more privacy and more lunatic fun (pun fully intended).

***Drumroll*** Let the show begin!

Books!

He who lends a book is an idiot. He who returns the book is more of an idiot.

~Arabic Proverb :)

Book-ishhh!!!!! :P

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.

~Abraham Lincoln :)

BOOK CLUB! :)

'Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.'

P.J. O'Rourke :)

BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! YIPPEE!!!

Wedding Bells Are Ringing!

Ta na na na na na na ta na na na..... thats the shehnaai going full blast to the background of raucous giggles from the gaggle of sahelies of the bashful(?) dulhaniya eagerly anticipating the arrival of her knight-in-shining-topor! And here we are with some useful married gyan for the two brides to be - Ayan and Kari. Pay attention gals, these tips are closely guarded secrets handed down through ages and are guaranteed to make you ride wave upon wave of wedded bliss (pun unintended!). Enjoy! ;D